Venture Concept No. 1

Opportunity: The opportunity for my venture idea arose from students on the UF campus. My market is primarily students who cannot find the time or means of transportation to get to the grocery store. I noticed this as I was on crutches for the first 9-10 weeks of classes this semester, so doing anything was very difficult for me. All customers are on or around the UF campus. The market consists of students who cannot go to the grocery store. Currently, customers are forced to find a way to get to the grocery store as well as the time to do so. With a student’s schedule, balancing classes, homework and projects, exams, extracurricular activities, and physical health is nearly impossible as is. However, when you try to incorporate time to go grocery shopping, things get a lot harder. This venture is a way to eliminate the chaos and stress of getting to the grocery store while also allowing students an opportunity to avoid the unhealthy options of delivery and focus on their fitness and health with a healthy diet. This opportunity could become even larger if I were to extend my business into a non-GMO and organic option for those people with major health concerns and focus. I hope and think that this opportunity will be available for a long period of time as students will always have this problem with the limited parking on campus and the schedules that we manage.

Innovation: My venture is that of a grocery delivery truck. I would launch an app that would also allow students to place orders through. To ensure that it is only students, they will have to sign in with their GatorLink in order to place the order. Customers would call the partner grocery store or open the free app and place their order at least 24 hours in advance. Once this order is placed, the groceries are bagged and the next day, the truck has a designated route that essentially delivers these orders to the customers. The prices would be competitive to that in the grocery stores. There would be a $2 charge when placing the order to ensure groceries are picked up as well as cover the cost of the truck. If this business is popular, the prices would be able to remain low and manageable. Customers would pay when picking up their orders at the truck with cash or card and show proper student ID at the truck.

Venture Concept: I believe that my venture will eliminate the stress, chaos, and time management struggles that students are consistently faced with. Students would easily switch to this product if prices were kept low enough. They would accept the small fee and have their groceries brought to their doorstep essentially. Competitors would be the grocery stores nearby. For students that can find the transportation, they might want to stay with their familiar methods. My pricing is vital to my venture’s success. If this causes prices to spike too high, students (who are very fiscally cautious) would not be overjoyed to pay extra. They would resort to finding rides to the store rather than paying extra.

I believe my most important resource is my competitive drive. I may have many other things or nothing at all, but my competitive drive will continue to push me and motivate me to make my business as successful as possible.

Next, I hope to expand to organic and non-GMO foods. With growing health concerns, this will allow my business to expand to those with these concerns in mind.

In 5 years, I hope to be expanding my business. I hope that it is very successful initially, but all good things take time. So in five years, I hope to be expanding into non-GMO foods and even beyond that, possibly to a larger target market.